Paperchime's Tune
by Leiiuen
Summary: Arthur is a young teen living life as a mute with his two older brothers' Alastair and Avery Kirkland. Writing in his journal and making paper cranes was all he had, but once his friend Marie decides to take him to a festival downtown, his life is forever changed by two inspirational step-brothers and one cherished friend he always had . Rated T just incase.


_Author's note: I'm back and ready to literally write a story before the school year comes back up. Can't promise for quick updates, but I hope you are content in what I give to you. Marie Bertolette is an Oc I made to make the story liven up more. She has few similarities to Francis, but since she is going to be quite important to the story, I hope you can handle her. _

_Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me but Marie. Character's belong to their rightful creator. Similar oc names are a coincidence. _

_Vrrrrrr. Vrrrrrr. Vrrrrrr. Vrrrrrr. _

_'What is that noise?' _Arthur thought warily in his head while he was still half awake.

_Vrrrrrr. Vrrrrrr. _

_'Do I really have to get up to answer?' _He thought once again as the vibrating sounds succeeded in waking him up.

He slowly pushes away the bed sheets from his body, sitting up practically lopsided as if all the bones in his body were not worth anything at the point. He was up all night and early morning long to finish his assigned practice pages for mathematics and definitely had regretted taking so much time on it when he knew that he lost his smart side of the brain when it hit 12:00 am. for sure. Mathematics was just not worth doing once you start feeling like being tired is the best option other than work.

Arthur swept his blond bangs back from his face and reaches up to his dresser to grab his phone. Just by looking at the front screen, he wanted to immediately throw his phone into the floor, whether he cracked the screen or broke it into pieces didn't matter.

_Marie : Good morning lapin!_

Marie Bertolette. French and a beauty, but more than ever, the person who loves to bother Arthur in the morning most. Arthur and Marie are not as close, but she was the only company he could have so far. They are nice to each other sometimes, but mostly bicker at each other depending on the topic they talk about. Marie knows about Arthur being a mute, so coming around to be with him makes her content enough to know that she can be the friend he needs, either visiting a few times or just messaging him every now and then.

_Arthur : You had to pick this morning out of all the ones you could have chosen.. _

_Marie : mon cher, inform me on what you were doing last night since you are being a grumpy lapin this morning_

_Arthur : mathematics. Brain shutting down midway. Tired. Really tired._

_Marie : You couldn't just wake up early and do the rest then?_

_Arthur : I mentioned my brain shutting down, right?_

_Marie : .. I'll be visiting you again around 2:00 _

_Arthur : Better than morning._

He tossed over his phone beside him as it sunk into the blanket sheets. Getting up from his sleep weakened body, he hunched his shoulders to get his clothes out and walked out of his room.

"Art, I'm glad you finally got your education going around now.. but don't you think sleeping is more important? Honestly, you just got out of the shower and it's already eleven o' clock in the morning!" Alastair, his oldest brother, shouted from across the kitchen.

Arthur rolled his eyes and grabbed his journal on the dinner table and a pen from the counter. He began writing down and Alastair rubbed his temples in the showing of trying to say 'stop talking back to me and just take my advice'.

_**'I already got words from Marie about it and I don't need to hear more' **_he wrote in response.

Alastair lifted an eyebrow. "She message you again? I guess she knows well how to make you grumpy in the mornings"

Arthur shrugged a bit. He couldn't complain by the fact that she can ruin his day with ease. Ever since their first fight together, the one thing Marie could do was get on Arthur's bad side within a few words. Arthur had lived with her French for more than a few years, so once she says something about him, he knows immediately what she had just said and practically slangs back at her.

_**'Guess so. She's coming over by 2:00 today'**_

"Good because she's going to be cooking food for us"

_**'Better than your cooking'**_

"I can break that pen anytime you know"

_**'And I can just get another, so fine by me'**_

He could hear his brother sighing and tossing a folded shirt back in the basket of laundry. "Arthur, really though. How about you sleep some more. I don't want you getting sleep deprivation any time soon just because you wanted to finish some algebra book pages. The last thing we need is you collapsing on the floor and waiting for Marie to nurse you back to health"

Arthur tapped the end of his pen on the hardwood table, thinking whether he should actually take his brother's advice or not. Reminding him of his sore, tired body getting up and just the _thought _of Marie helping him get better made his stomach feel knotted in ways it hasn't felt.

_**'Blooming no' **_he wrote quickly in protest.

His brother had rose an eyebrow. "I'm being serious, Art. I thought I remember you writing that you were SO tired and wanted to crawl your way back into bed instead of freshening up"

_**'I didn't mean CRAWL so belt up. You're lucky enough that I dragged myself out of the doorway!'**_

"Just stop complaining and go sit on the deck. You have to wait for Marie, right?"

At the corner of his eye, he almost noticed Arthur rolling his eyes and prop his head on his one hand. **'Trust me. I have almost 3 hours until she arrives'**

"Just go out. Get that temper off your heated head and breath in some air outside" Alastair sighed out.

_**'took the words right out of my hands'**_

Arthur sighed heavily. Alastair hadn't looked at his last message on the paper, so he shut his journal and carried it with him. When he was about to slide the door open, a scarf came up from behind him and hands had wrapped it around Arthur's neck tightly. Arthur quickly loosened the scarf and turned around to see his older brother, Avery. He ruffled Arthur's blonde hair around and sat on one of the chairs by the kitchen table, letting out a hand. Arthur slouched his shoulders a bit and handed over his journal to Avery. When it comes to his older brother, the one thing he likes to do when he wakes up is to read Arthur's journal. Kills the blank morning time.

"The new haircut suits you better. You're lucky we got it cut by a professional instead of Alastair" Avery said. He looked over to see Alastair roughly folding the clothes now and he chuckled a bit.

"Listen Ave," Alastair said, "Just because I can't cook as good or cut hair as good doesn't mean I can't be good at something. I'm tellin' you, ever since Arthur got upset about his last haircut, you've been all over me like everything I do ends out in disaster"

Avery flipped a page in Arthur's journal and acted like he couldn't hear him when he did. "Let me lighten up some recent information. You do cook badly and that is one terrible piece of work that you passed down to our little brother. Arthur almost looked like you when you gave him that hairstyle and it was too much to handle. It's like you're making Arthur into another you"

" What's the problem? He's our brother, so he's going to end up like one of us eventually"

"That's true and I don't want him to end up like you. He has a cleaner haircut now and he's generally being a well-grown man, unlike you who just folds clothes and sags into the couch to sleep for hours every single day"

"Let's not forget that I pay all the bills in the house and work night shifts all my life to help our family benefits"

"And let's not forget that I have to split part of my work payment to spend off all those bills every two weeks for our family benefits"

By now, it was become a parental war between his two brothers and just them whining over nothing makes him want to bang his head against the wall many, many times. He quickly goes to grab his pen by Avery's elbow on the table and runs outside onto the porch. If there was one thing Arthur loves most , it was sitting on the bench swing out in the yard. When their mother died, they were able to save her long kiwi vines from their old house's garden fence and wrapped it around the swing nicely. Although he does love his brothers, he needs to just get away from them every now and then to keep his mind steady rather than warped in the various arguments they go on about. But although the swing was one thing he could have loved most, another would be the wind chime that hung on a hook from the top of the swing's beam. The chime was actually given by Marie when they first met. Even though they don't get along _perfectly, _they do show friendly affections for each other to show the promise they made ; _Even though we argue, it doesn't mean the world to how much of a good friend you are and mean to me. _

Most of the quarrels they make almost mean nothing more than just messing around with one another. It's been a thing for them to suddenly bring up a useless fight to entertain one another when they have nothing else to do on their free time. Marie rarely comes to see him, so whenever she comes over, she either has some kind of bread or pastry to give to the brothers. However, Arthur would prefer her always bringing banana bread since it was his favored kind.

Arthur flips to the way back part of his journal and looks down blankly. '_What story should I write this time?' _he thought to himself. Arthur had done nothing throughout his life much other than his classic hobby of carelessly writing short stories in his journal or slowly making a collection of paper cranes on his windowsill. He always gave Marie a paper crane whenever she visits as an gift exchange for her cooking, but sometimes he colors a design on paper and makes a paper balloon for her to show that he is happy to see her again. One thing's for sure is that ever since this morning she had disturbed his sleep, he is most likely NOT making a paper balloon this time. Just the average paper cranes as usual. Arthur scratches out the list of character names he wrote, tore the page out, and crumbled it in his hands. The harder he thinks, the more he downs his ideas in few seconds flat. He picks up his pen beside him and begins brainstorming settings. Should it be a Sci-Fi story in a futuristic city? or maybe the average slice of life in a different country? Arthur wrote his thoughts down on the white sheets of journal pages one by one until he had reached about the bottom of the page. He finishes writing as his brain slowly runs out of its excitement, closing his journal and setting it down on the grass with the pen inside. Arthur closes his eyes slowly, leaning back on the swing as he rocks himself back and forth with one foot. He listened to the wind chime cling from above his head with the thought of Marie coming into his mind. He began to think more into the thought rather than he had planned on, asking himself _Why is Marie my only friend? _or _Maybe I would have more friends if I was never mute_.

As he went deeper and deeper into his many unanswered questions, it was all cut off. **Crackle. **A crumbling noise awoke his attention, his eyes shot open in a heartbeat. He looks down to see flower decorated boots stepping over his crumbled paper on the ground and as he looks up, the mystery was all solved. An older female with hazel ringlet hair and glistening cyan eyes glaring down at him. _Marie._ She came more earlier than usual, but that's her for you. Get's to places quicker than she thinks and doesn't complain since she is quite the early bird. She sets a loaf of bread, wrapped in tinfoil, on Arthur's lap and picks up the paper crane he left for her beside him.

"I see your hair is much nicer. Now you don't look like a _paon sauvage" _Marie teased, playing with the paper bird's wing.

Arthur only rolled his eyes at such a comment and she makes a small grin in amusement. Arthur opens the tinfoil to see a loaf of bread cut in thin slices. It smelled of pumpkin and cinnamon, but he wasn't sure if it was pumpkin bread or actually pear bread. He picks up the end slice with his two fingers and takes a small bite. As he had thought first, _it was cinnamon pumpkin. _Arthur takes the next three bites, enjoying the snack as he usually does.

"Comment c'est" Marie asks eagerly. When it comes to her cooking, she _has _to know how it tastes to make sure if she needs any improving.

Since Arthur left his journal on the grass somewhere, he only nodded. Marie nods back in understanding and calms down.

"Hé, get your journal back in your hands. I want to speak with you about something" She asks.

Arthur raises an eyebrow at her for a second, then reaches below the swing to grab his journal with him having to re-grab the pen that dropped out of the pages it settled in. He sits back up, flips to a blank page in the front, and has his pen set and ready to write. Marie, again, nods and begins talking.

"There is a fall festival coming up downtown for all the school students tomorrow and I want to take you there. You don't go out much and I think it would be a good chance for you to have a little joy in your life outside than making origami in your room or whatever else you do"

Arthur hesitated in moving his wrist for the moment. _There are other kids my age around there too though. What if they think I'm strange because I talk to people through a journal. _He tapped the end of the pen on the blank white paper, unsure of what he wanted to do. Marie felt tempted for his answer, but also a bit guilty because of how straightforward she asked him. After all, she knew that he doesn't get outside much at all.

Arthur sigh's a bit, then writes down. _**'I'll go. Avery has to come with me though' **_

Marie looked at the sentence and shrugged her shoulders. "Better than never. But why does he have to come with us? Don't you have a phone?"

_**'Of course I have a phone, but Avery knows I never go far from home, so he's going to follow me no matter what'**_

"Well, I mean, I can watch over you. I'm older than you, after all"

_**'Love, you're only one year older than me and I highly doubt that you have to watch over me like a mum'**_

Marie crossed her arms. When she gets up all about herself, Arthur has to reel in the sarcasm and his sarcasm is one of the reasons she lives to bother him constantly. "Actually, _love, _I never agreed to even be your 'mum' and listen, I'm fifteen, so your brothers' can at least rely on me to walk you down the road for goodness sake"

_**'You talk it out with them then. Alastair is stubborn to get through though'**_

"Trust me _lapin, _once I mention cooking to him, we have him out of the way"

Arthur seemed to agree well, after all, he was sure that everyone in their household could never forbid Marie's cooking. Taking up the idea for now, he nodded.

_**'Alright. And please stop calling me a bunny. It's embarrassing'**_

The cold of fall season makes Arthur's cheeks scarlet and Marie wouldn't help put pinch them.

"As long as you find it embarrassing, I will keep calling you lapin, _lapin"_

_French translations : _

_lapin - bunny/rabbit (however you want to read it)._

_paon sauvage - wild peacock _

Comment c'est - how is it

Hé - hey

I do not write often, so no hate comments please. If there are any problems you wish to point out, please go ahead so I can improve better next time! And review - let me know what you think so far . Alfred may appear later in the few chapters, so we'll see.


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